Karl WEIGL (1881-1949)
Isle of the Dead (1903) [13.12]
Pictures and Tales, Op.2 (1909) [13.03]
Night Fantasies, Op.13 (1911) [21.35]
Dance of the Furies (1937-8) [5.21]
Six Fantasies (1942) [25.30]
Joseph Banowetz (piano)
rec. Skywalker Sound, Marin County, California, 9-10 November, 18 December
2009
NAXOS 8.572423 [78.49]
Karl Weigl was yet another of the many European composers who sought refuge
in America during the Nazi era. He had begun his career in Vienna as a pianist
and as a conductor under Mahler, but after a time started to focus on large-scale
orchestral canvases. He does not appear to have been happy in exile, and was
largely neglected as a composer, turning again to smaller-scale pieces which
had more chance of performance. However he wrote two later symphonies (see review), and these have recently been recorded by the
Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under Thomas Sanderling for BIS. The Fifth
Symphony, subtitled Apocalyptic, is a real surprise (see review) - it begins with the sound of the orchestra tuning up and only
gradually does the thematic material emerge from this early example of ‘free
music’. The two symphonies are otherwise thoroughly romantic works,
for all the world as if the Second Viennese School had never existed.
His piano music, on the other hand, is far less ambitious. The pieces here
are all either early or late works, and seem to have been intended largely
for Weigl’s own performances as a recitalist. The disc opens with the
charming Six Fantasies which he originally wrote for occasional recitals
or broadcasts in America but then it does not seem that any public performances
ever actually materialised. They are pretty lightweight trifles, designed
clearly as crowd-pleasers pure and simple. Nor are they really virtuoso pieces;
they could indeed have been written a hundred years earlier, and would not
have turned heads even then. Only the final movement, subtitled Halloween,
generates any real sense of excitement; this piece makes more demands on the
pianist, which Banowetz handles with aplomb and a nice lightness of touch.
Weigl appears to have been the first composer to have taken inspiration from
Böcklin’s famous painting of the Totinsel, before either
Reger (in his beautiful Four Böcklin Pictures) or Rachmaninov
in his large-scale symphonic poem. However Weigl never published his score
- he seems to have regarded it as a piece of juvenilia - and the performance
here is claimed, amazingly enough, to be the first one ever given. It is a
nicely atmospheric piece reflecting its subject, and shows no signs of immaturity.
That said, it is rather over-long for its content, and the limited tone-colour
of the piano cannot begin to compete with its orchestral rivals. It ends very
inconclusively - was this intentional, or did Weigl simply leave the piece
unfinished?
The six pieces which make up the Bilder und Geschichten take their
titles from various children’s rhymes and stories, and have a certain
kinship to Schumann’s Kinderszenen. These are again very straightforward
pieces, although they would be too complex for most children to play. Even
the movement Sleeping Beauty’s grave is very lightweight, indeed
almost frisky. The Tanz der Erinnyen was written just before Weigl
left for America, and he afterwards seems to have forgotten it because he
never performed or published it; it was not performed until 1970. It is quite
a virtuoso piece, and has the implication of a gesture of defiance to the
inhospitable Europe that he was leaving behind.
The Nachtphantasien on the other hand were taken up by several pianists,
although Weigl himself only ever performed individual movements in a simplified
version for two pianos. Perhaps his technique was simply not up to it - which
might also explain the relatively modest demands made on the pianist in the
works that he did compose for his own recitals. These are the best works on
this disc, moody and reflective with a nice line in stormy passion; the first
movement contains a brief passage (at 2.05) which anticipates the melody Prokofiev
would later use in his lament in Alexander Nevsky. The later pieces
are rather less impressive, reminiscent of Rachmaninov but without the same
sheer force of personality.
Listeners who wish to make the acquaintance of Weigl would be served far better
by listening to one of the recordings of the symphonies as an initial introduction
to the work of an unfairly neglected composer. The piano pieces included here
help to round out our impressions of one of the last of the late romantics,
but they do not give a rounded picture of a composer whose inspiration seems
to have worked better on a larger scale. Banowetz however should be congratulated
on his continuing willingness to explore the fringes of the repertory, and
gives nicely intimate performances in well-rounded sound. None of the music
here over-taxes his abilities, but it is nevertheless nice to make its acquaintance.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
Nicely intimate performances in well-rounded sound. One of the last of the
late romantics.